Tommy
Tune has said that dancers, when they sing, sing with their whole bodies. No
doubt that's true for Tune, who used every inch of his lanky, 6-foot-6 frame Wednesday
night to perform a grab bag of hits – standards you'd expect from the Great
American Songbook from the Gershwins and Porter, plus one or two sneak-attack
numbers from the likes of Green Day – to a sold-out room at Nighttown.

Dressed
from head to tapping toe in lust-for-life red, including a pair of suede saddle
shoes, Tune announced that with his appearance in Cleveland Heights, "I
officially begin my 55th year in showbiz." And God, does it show – in the most
divine way.

The
showman is old-school in that he wants to make you laugh a little, cry a little,
and leave feeling, not only that you got your money's worth, but as though
you've shared whispered secrets.

The
elasticated Texas native has won nine Tony Awards, been designated a living
landmark and counts Carol Channing as his spiritual mother. (His impression of
the unique vocal stylings of Broadway's Dolly is so superb, you'll be tempted
to place an ermine wrap 'round his shoulders and a tiara atop his regal, sliver
shock of hair.)

And
yet, at 74, he is touring the country with his longtime piano man, the
inventive, fleet-fingered Michael Biagi, and equipped with nothing more than a
puny stage the size of a two-person tabletop and his irresistible, low-key
charm.

Turns
out, that's all he needs. With his genial affect, slender silhouette and
genuine delight at working a crowd, Tune is bottled joy. (He glows a little too, his skin
lightly toasted from the South Beach sun where he goes to escape harried,
honking New York.)

"Taps,
Tunes and Tall Tales" delivers exactly what its title promises, with Tune
cherry-picking from his groaning chest of memories for star-studded patter: The
late, great Charles "Honi" Coles, with whom he brought down the house in "My
One and Only," was "a master of the soft shoe and a chick magnet"; Tune taught
Phyllis Diller the Hustle and took "jungle dancing" classes with Tom Selleck
while under contract at 20th-Century Fox. (None of the "tales" ever
edge into tell-all territory; this is, after all, an hour-and-a-half trip
through his professional arc, not a riffling of his personal life).

While
perched on a ladder, improbably taller than ever, Tune told the story of how he
lost everything – 50 years of journals, all the tap shoes he'd ever worn
through, scripts, news clippings and the canvases he'd painted – when Hurricane
Sandy flooded his Manhattan art studio.

Mucking
through the sludgy debris in hip waders – "they only came up to my thighs,"
Tune said – he spotted, floating on top, a pristine photograph. It was a
picture of "The Queen and I," he said, quickly clarifying that he was in the
frame with the current Queen Elizabeth, then adding, "are there any other
queens?"

"Uh,
yes," said a gentleman to his left, outfitted in a pink feather boa and Panama
hat.

That Catskills-style, quips-from-the-seats
spontaneity is one of the reasons Tune loves cabaret, gamely enduring servers
squeezing by to deposit Caesar salads and plates of mussels on a table near the
mini-stage. As promised, the top of his Beethoven mane didn't graze the
low-slung ceiling.

Tune's
movements still appear effortless, as though he could pull off those
rat-ta-ta-ta, "syncopated, mesmerizing rhythms," as he put it, in a
somnambulant state; his voice, never a show-stopping belt, is easygoing and
intimate.

More
than that, his phrasing, in the bittersweet songs especially, is heavy with
experience. There are ghosts up there singing beside him, lost friends such as
Coles, who had a stroke during a matinee of "My One and Only" in Grand Rapids,
Mich., and found himself, in the middle of a scene, unable to sing or speak.

"But
he could dance," Tune remembered, marveling at how Cole perfectly executed the
steps as they performed together for the last time.

His
brown eyes swimming, Tune launched into a slow-burning version of "Wake Me Up When September Ends," so much
better, somehow, when performed unplugged.

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